


Meeting with the Emperor

by orphan_account



Series: Eden Young: Courier Six [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 03:00:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Courier Six accepts Caesar's invitation to speak. She knows she shouldn't but her curiosity gets the better of her.Honestly, just a sort of character study. I've been playing F:NV a lot recently, and wondered why the Courier might agree to speak to Caesar, despite hating him or disagreeing with him. So... yep. This is it!No pairing at this point, but I'll probably post other short stories that explore the Courier's relationships.





	Meeting with the Emperor

It must make them sick to see a woman walk their camp free, let alone a dark-skinned woman, a "profligate."

Eden fights the urge to roll her eyes when one of Caesar's legates meets her in Cottonwood Cove, offering to escort her across the water. His offer leaves no room to turn him down. Eden has little choice in any case. She's never steered a boat before, and would not care to arrive at Caeser's camp alone. Maybe she could get off a few shots of her pistol, but she'd be taken down too quickly to do any real damage. Despite this, she feels a strong urge to destroy something of Caeser's. It's selfish, the urge to cause petty damage. She does her best to ignore it.

He wants her to do a favor for him. Of course he does. He pretends she's important to his mission, but she's just (property) as expendable as the rag-clad women she saw carrying packs up the hill. When she'd tried to catch their gazes, all of the women had looked away. The Legion treated their livestock better than this.

"I have a task for you." Caesar refused to look her in the eye and did not stand to greet her, even as he spoke directly to Eden. Complete Brahmin shit.

She declined, of course.

"I'll have to think about it. Give me a few days?"

Well, declined in the safest way possible. There was no way she'd return to take him up on his offer. By the time a few days had passed, she planned to be as far from the Legion as possible. Hopefully to Hoover Dam, or to speak to the NCR ambassador whose name she could never remember. Although she'd let her overt curiosity lead her to Caesar's camp, she wasn't so stupid as to do his dirty work for him.

She was almost surprised when he let her leave. He really must not have considered Eden a threat.

As she made her exit, she noticed a wasteland trader standing at the entrance to the Legion's camp. If he was surprised to see her walking freely around and unmarked, he didn't give any indication. Instead, he smiled at Eden from under the brim of his fraying straw hat. It wasn't a pleasant smile, but closer to the wolf's grin when he encounters a lost sheep. Still, she approached him with a friendly-ish wave and a pasted-on smile of her own.

"Hey there!" 

He tipped his hat. 

"Howdy, miss. Nice weather out, ain't it?"

She nodded. It was too bright and hot for her tastes, but that wasn't unusual. She wore huge hats and light fabrics for a reason.

"What's a fellow like you doing all the way out here? I didn't realize Caesar traded with..." she paused, fishing for the best word. "... ousiders."

The man shrugged off her question with a chuckle. 

"Nah, he don't mind us, so long's we don't bring whiskey or chems."

Well. She'd never realized that. How many traders had she haggled with who also sold to the Legion? It made her sick just thinking about it.

"I see," she replied. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Nope," the trader replied, scratching his beard. "Don't even need to hire on guards, most'a the time. Caesar's boys keep away bandits and raiders."

Well. Didn't that sound the picture of civility? She'd heard Caesar's men talk about their righteous cause, but this truly made her think they thought they were in the moral right. "Cleansing" the barbarous wasteland to make way for their particular brand of civilization.

"Do you trade with the NCR as well?"

The trader looked around, making sure no Legion soldiers were listening before he responded.

"Occasionally, if the opportunity presents itself," he told her. "Taxes 'er high, roads 'er dangerous. S'easier just stickin' to Arizona 'n New Mexico."

Did he truly think Caeser wouldn't exact his own sort of taxes once he'd taken over the whole of the West? She supposed it must not have bothered the trader. Slavery certainly didn't seem to, why should Caesar's total dictatorship change anything?

Eventually, she left the trader, recovered her firearms, and walked all the way back to the Strip. After killing Benny, she'd just sort of left his helper robot in his hidden room at the Tops. She still had the room key. Maybe it would be worth working with the robot after all. Help the NCR push out Caesar's forces for good.

It was worth a shot.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This fic is un-betaed, and I'm terrible at writing accents. *rolls away*


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